


Break into Me (an apocalyptic romance in ten parts)

by glorious_spoon



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-16
Updated: 2010-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ends, but that's really just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break into Me (an apocalyptic romance in ten parts)

I  
  
Adam is the only person who never asks him when he's going to take his wedding ring off. All other considerations aside, Kris loves him a little for that.  
  
II  
  
They're in California when it happens. Some Idol reunion concert thing, good publicity, a chance to see the guys again. It's only supposed to be a week.  
  
Usually, Katy sees him off to the airport, but her best friend from high school just got engaged and she was out late the night before. She's still sleeping in a pool of sunlight in their tangled sheets while he putters around the house, getting together the last of the odds and ends he needs--cell phone charger, lucky guitar pick, an extra change of socks and some clothes that won't make him stick out like a sore thumb when Adam inevitably drags him out clubbing.  
  
He brings her a glass of water and kisses her forehead, sitting on the bed in jeans and sneakers, and she stirs a little, blinks, yawns. "Hey."  
  
"Hey," Kris says back. "Here. Drink some water."  
  
She takes the glass from his hands, and giggles a little when he slides his fingers, still cool with condensation, over the bare curve of her hip. Even half-asleep and hung-over, she's so beautiful that sometimes he still can't believe he's allowed to touch her like this. "Are you leaving already? I was gonna drive you in."  
  
"Nah, it's okay," Kris says, kissing her again. Her mouth is warm and soft, familiar in the best way. "Get some sleep, okay? I'll text you when I get there."  
  
Katy smiles sleepily at him. "Say hi to everybody for me, will you?"  
  
"Yeah. I should get going. Love you."  
  
He ruffles her hair, and she smacks at his hand. "Love you too."  
  
It's the last time he'll ever see her.  
  
III  
  
The first thing Kris thinks when he walks into Adam's ridiculously huge suite on the second night and sees a billowing mushroom cloud on the flat-screen TV is that he's watching a movie.  
  
Adam is sitting on the bed with one sleeve of his leather jacket on, mouth open, transfixed.  
  
Adam doesn't like war movies.  
  
When he turns to look at Kris, his face is dead-white, ghost-white, silent and stunned, and Kris drops his guitar. It makes a jangling, dissonant noise that echoes weirdly in his ears.  
  
IV  
  
The cell network is already down, the TV cuts out five minutes later, and it's not until somebody gets their hands on a transistor radio that they find out what happened. More or less. Three bombs. Nothing left standing east of Colorado.  
  
Nothing standing.  
  
Kris sways on his feet in the too-hot room for a moment. Someone is crying. The panicked announcer on the radio is making noises like  _death toll_  and  _martial law_  and then his feet are carrying him out into the hallway that's dark and still lingering cool from the AC that's probably been running since this building was constructed.  
  
He doesn't realize that he's punching the wall until a big hand--black nail polish, silver rings--closes around his wrist, holding firm. He doesn't realize he's crying until he turns and sees the tears standing in Adam's eyes.  
  
Adam doesn't say anything, just folds him into an embrace that smells like leather and expensive cologne. Kris presses his face into Adam's collarbone until it hurts and holds on. The dark spaces of his mind are filled with one long, silent scream that he can't let out, and Adam is rubbing circles on his back and murmuring  _Shh_  and  _I got you, I got you,_  soft nonsense words over and over again.  
  
Later that night, they're huddled together in someone's room--Anoop's, maybe, not that Kris is paying much attention--and everyone else makes tentative noises about  _not knowing_  and  _maybe they could be okay.  
_  
Adam, mercifully, doesn't, but the warm shape of his leg is solid against Kris. Adam's always like that. Just  _there,_ comforting, reliable in a way people don't expect when they look at him.  
  
It isn't much comfort, now, but it's enough for Kris to sit up, wave off Allison's third attempt at reassurance (she's radiating panic around the edges, God, so  _young)_  and say, "Okay, we have to get out of here. Where can we go?"  
  
V  
  
The first time they see soldiers, it's the next day, and there are a couple of tanks opening fire on the street below. A bunch of Latino teenagers were throwing things. Rocks, maybe. Paint cans, by the colorful splatter on the tank's camo skin.  
  
From the hotel window, Kris sees the bodies crumple, the  _rat-a-tat-tat_  loud enough to make his eardrums feel like they're exploding.  
  
Adam makes a sick, horrified noise in the back of his throat and stumbles in the direction of the bathroom. Kris wants to puke, but it looks like something out of a Bruce Willis movie, too surreal to be happening, and he just stares while the gang scatters and the tank roars through the empty street.  
  
They move out of the cities after that.  
  
VI  
  
Kris learns to dig latrine trenches and skin a deer without puking and Adam stops painting his nails. There are twenty of them, or so, a rag-tag band mostly made up of people who were never meant to survive in the wilderness.  
  
Kris can fire a gun, though before this it was more in theory than anything else. Sarver has done some hunting, and that helps.  
  
Allison has quick nimble fingers that can sew things together. Sometimes the things she sews are wounds, and they all learn to deal with that.  
  
Adam is agile, silent as a cat when he wants to be, and its the kind of incongruity that hurts something deep inside of Kris. Adam is light and noise and joyous, ridiculous spectacle. Adam should never come striding wraithlike out of a dark abandoned town with a rucksack of pilfered food slung over one shoulder, no makeup but the streaks of soot on his face.  
  
"I like it," Kris says, smearing the ashes with his fingers until they form lines down Adam's cheekbones. On the other side of the fire, Gokey is watching them, but he looks like he's lost the energy to disapprove. "It's very  _you."_  
  
"Shut up," Adam laughs, smacking his hand away.  
  
"I mean it," Kris says, and when Adam wraps an arm around his shoulder he tucks himself in close, like always. It's comfort, easy and familiar, and there's nobody around to say anything, not that it would matter anymore if they did. He remembers meetings with his publicists, phone calls in the middle of the night, hell, tabloid covers because he and Adam never seemed to know how to stop touching each other. It seems so stupid now.  
  
Katy thought it was funny. But Katy was also the one who stroked his hair back, late one night, and said, "Baby, if anything ever happens between you two, I'm okay with that."  
  
"I wouldn't--" Kris sputtered. "Adam wouldn't--" and she put a finger over his lips.  
  
"I'm not saying it will," she told him. "Just, if it does. I've seen the way you look at him."  
  
"You're the only woman I need," Kris told her, and she laughed, wide-open, head thrown back like he said something really funny.  
  
"Well,  _yeah."_  
  
He doesn't think about Katy anymore, if he can help it.  
  
VII  
  
Kris wakes up one night crying, with the fire still crackling on the other side of the tent wall. In the small space between them, Adam reaches across, touches his arm, his hair, cups his jaw.  
  
"I can't--" Kris mutters, tumbling into honesty because of the hour and the fact that he's dizzy with exhaustion. "I don't know how to--"  
  
There were no funerals, because everybody they've met says the East is a death zone. Nobody could survive it. The highways are still barricaded east of New Mexico, and it's all dead, dry earth and flashfire glass after that, like something out of Mad Max. Kris knows, because he made the eight-hour drive in a stolen (does it count as stolen, now?) Jeep a few days After. Adam knows because he followed.  
  
Kris honestly has no memory of the long drive back, or of anything that happened after he saw the blast radius with his own eyes.  
  
They had their own memorial service, last week. Danny tried to pray. Anoop organized, and Adam and Kris sang Taps. It felt awkward and  _wrong,_  like something out of a high school play and still so horribly real.  
  
"Honey, I know," Adam murmurs, quiet in the flickering light.  
  
His fingers stroke through Kris' hair again, slow comfort, and Kris says, "I don't know how to not miss her."  
  
"You can't just stop," Adam says.  
  
"I wish I could."  
  
Adam rolls closer, pulls Kris in toward him. "You shouldn't just stop."  
  
"I know," Kris says, and he curls into Adam's arms.  
  
VIII  
  
It's late April and they're camping out in an abandoned mansion in the Hills when Adam gets sick. Really sick. It's something going around; everybody gets woozy and sore for a couple of days, but Adam's hit hard.  
  
It's just a fever. In the Before, it was something they could have taken him to a hospital for. Kris thinks so, anyway. He's not a nurse, but he's seen people dying before, come pretty close to the edge himself on a dirt floor in Morocco, what feels like a lifetime ago. He knows what it looks like. Six months ago, this would have been treatable, but now all they can do is feed Adam aspirin and pray.  
  
Kris is the one who peels Adam out of his sweat-stained clothes and hauls him into a tub of lukewarm water. Adam's only half-aware, shivering and mumbling things to people who aren't there. He's so skinny that Kris can almost count his ribs, and he shudders and groans when the water hits his skin.  
  
"Shhh," Kris murmurs, pushing his hair back. It's mostly blond now, too shaggy, and underneath it Adam's face is hollow-cheeked and so white that his freckles look like ink splatters. "Hush, now."  
  
From the door, Allison watches, big-eyed.  
  
"It's okay," Kris tells her. "I got him, it's okay. He's gonna be okay."  
  
He doesn't really know who he's reassuring.  
  
Danny offers to pray, and Kris lets him even though he doesn't know exactly what Adam would have to say about that.   
  
If there's anybody up there listening (it stings that he's not even sure about that anymore), He has to intervene for Adam. He just has to.  
  
The fever climbs until touching Adam feels like touching a hot stove, until he's rambling out incoherent hallucinations in a voice that sounds cracked and raw, and Kris feels like all his willpower goes into holding back the scream that lives behind his teeth. He doesn't leave Adam's side, night and day, makes him drink water, cools him down, curls around his back in the night and presses his face into the nape of Adam's neck, breathes in the smell of sweat and sick and thinks  _not you, not you, I can't lose you too._  
  
It breaks on the fourth night. Kris wakes up in the dark hours of morning to sheets soaked through with sweat and Adam breathing slow and even beside him.   
  
Adam's mouth is slack, a little, his hair plastered to his forehead, and his skin is cool and damp when Kris reaches out and touches his cheek. He doesn't even notice how close they are until Adam blinks, wrinkles his nose and opens his eyes. He looks tired and a little confused, but when Kris can't stop an enormous grin from spreading across his face, Adam smiles back.  
  
"You're back," Kris says, voice cracking.  
  
"Yeah," Adam says. "I'm back."  
  
IX  
  
Kris turns twenty-six on a hot June day, hazy blue skies overhead and canned peaches for breakfast. He only remembers because Adam and Danny--unlikeliest allies ever--keep obsessive track of the days on a battered calendar. Six more months before they run out of pages, and Kris hasn't asked what they plan to do then.  
  
He thinks Danny still half-expects the world to magically reset itself someday, but he's never had the heart to press Adam for his reasons. Even though Adam woke him up today with a full-body tackle that practically broke his ribs--even so much skinnier than he should be, Adam's a big guy--and serenaded him with a version of  _Happy Birthday_  that would have done Freddie Mercury proud.  
  
Allison clapped and laughed and Kris couldn't stop smiling, even when he shoved Adam off him.  
  
It's a slow day, hot and dry here in the canyon, and they get a fire going around sunset. Somebody has a boombox and some new batteries pilfered from a convenience store a few miles away, and there's a motley collection of liquor gathered together around Kris' feet like offerings to a god, and after a few drinks he stops protesting and starts laughing when somebody slips in a CD.  
  
It's none of their music, just some boppy dance track that's probably a few years older than Allison, and Kris nods his head along to the beat and laughs while she dances gleefully around the campfire, all frothing skirts and tangled hair like some pixie child.  
  
Then Adam's there, leaning over him to snag a bottle of vodka. He kisses Kris on the cheek on his way back up, tilts his head back to drink, and shakes his hair back out of his eyes, laughing.  
  
"Adam!" Allison calls over the music. "Come dance!"  
  
"On my way, sweetie," Adam yells back. He's rolling his shoulders, bouncing on his heels like he's getting a feel for the beat, but then the song changes and before Kris quite knows what's going on, there's a hand around his wrist and Adam is pulling him out of his seat and into the stretch of packed dirt around the fire.  
  
"I'm not--" Kris protests halfheartedly, laughing.  
  
"Oh, you are," Adam crows. "It's your  _birthday!"  
_  
Kris would make an argument that it being his birthday seems like a pretty good reason for him to not make an ass of himself if he doesn't feel like it, but then Adam pushes the vodka bottle back into his hand. Kris drinks automatically, hips and feet and shoulders already finding the beat of their own accord, just loose enough with the alcohol that he's not too self-conscious about it.  
  
It's dark by now, the fire making Allison and Adam into tall, flickering shadows as they spin each other around. Allison wheels away, laughing, headbanging to the beat, and then there's just Adam dancing alone.  
  
Adam's a good dancer. Anybody who's seen him perform, anyone who's seen him in a club--anybody who's paid attention to the way he  _walks_  can figure that much out, but it's totally different to see him like this, shirtless and barefoot in scuffed jeans, moving to the beat of some late-eighties pop hit like the music lives in his bones.  
  
Kris likes things that are stripped down to the essentials. There's a purity in them. A kind of beauty.  
  
X  
  
When it happens, like most things between them, it's so simple that Kris feels like a moron for not seeing it sooner.  
  
It's late. Kris is sitting cross-legged in the door of their tent, watching Adam feed the last of the logs into the smoldering fire. They're the only ones still awake, and the rustling trees leaning over their small camp are back-lit against a cloudy sky. Adam is humming absently, snatches of a melody that Kris doesn't recognize.   
  
Could be something he's writing. Adam's not much of a songwriter, really, but he's never going to be the kind of guy who can just let the music go, no matter what. It's one of the things Kris loves about him. One of the many things.   
  
It should feel like an epiphany, but it doesn't. It's so freaking  _obvious_ , for one thing, and for another...it's just Adam.  
  
It's just Adam uncurling out of his crouch, stretching un-selfconsciously, head rolling back, eyes closed, making a quiet, satisfied  _hmm_  sound under his breath. It's just Adam crossing the packed dirt between the firepit and their tent and when Kris reaches out, reflexively, to haul him in, it doesn't feel like anything earth-shattering.  
  
They hit the sleeping pads in a tangle of limbs, and Adam's eyes are huge in the flickering light. "Kris?"   
  
"Hi," Kris says, grinning. He feels stupid-happy, giddy like he just chugged an entire bottle of champagne. Adam is freckled and reddish-blond, pale brows and lashes gilted in the moonlight, chapped lips. He doesn't look like the the personification of modern music, like the magazines were calling him back in the Before. He just looks like Adam. He feels warm and familiar, and it's not like Kris really knows what he's doing here,  but he's always been good at learning on the fly.  
  
"Kris," Adam says again. "This is--"  
  
"--a really good idea," Kris finishes, and arches up to kiss him.  
  
When they pull apart, several long seconds later, Adam's eyes are still big, but there's a smile gathering in the edges of his mouth: an incredulous,  _happy_  smile that's easily the best thing Kris has seen since--well, in a long time. He touches Kris's cheek, and his hand is shaking. "Are you sure about this?"  
  
There's a lot Kris could say: how Adam stands out like there's a spotlight on him even with all his protective layers of glitter and glam stripped away; how he's brilliant and beautiful and honestly a little terrifying; how in spite of all that he's been the still calm center of a world that's spinning out of control for the past five months. He could say all that, but it would sound pretty cheesy and Adam already knows it, anyway.  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure," he says instead, and pulls Adam down for another kiss.


End file.
